WHAT COULD BE BETTER WITH PLAYMOBIL

[playmofire]

i bet playmo-icelandic fans should be sad, maybe they could are only 100 or less (in a total population of 300.000) but they are very nice people. 

They are indeed nice people.  I remember being able to help an Icelandic Playmobil fan restore a 3750 pirate ship, partly through surplus parts I had and partly by including parts for him on my UK DS order.

i don't know if the spanish playmo-guys are of the very nationalist kind (and resent the fact that portugal was able to remain independent from spain) or if they can´t understand any other language besides spanish (i prefer to believe in this second, more benevolent, explanation). 

Be cunning and always email them in English, maybe even use an English name.

[cachalote]

well lhapp, i prefer to use the same motto a bande-déssiné's character created by hugo pratt  uses - those that do not love me do not deserve me. 
playmofire's suggestion could be a good one - it would have worked in portugal so i think it would work in spain (we are quite a-like). 

meanwhile, to adress the quantity problem - to have a buch of figures in just one set, other then d.s. available - i thought the bucket concept would be a nice one.
i gathered my legos in a bucket when i was a child and i can see on ebay that so many people use buckets in the same way with playmobil.
a bucket has that magical capacity of making one wanting to fill it.
it has also gives a wonderful sesnse of abubdance when it is filled.

if playmobil could re-instate the buckets - they did it in the past with lyra, in greece, although they were very small - they could create sets abundant with figures.
imagine a small 15 figures roman army.
... or an english army, or a bunch of royal navy sailors to fill a new big royal navy ship (yet to be produced) or a crew of pirates to populate ships and islands.
... or firefighters, knights, people invited to the wedding, animals to over-crowd a zoo or a forest, an egyptian army, doctors and nurses and patients, mechanics, fishes ans marine mammals...
buckets filled with happiness. 

[playmofire]

The bucket idea is a good one and certainly very appealing to me and, I'm sure, other fans.  At the very least you would have somewhere to keep your figures when you weren't playing with them.

[Martin Milner]

I'd like Playmobil to package some of their sets better. This applies to mid-sized sets mainly - some effort is made with ships to give them support inside the boxes and prevent knocks and rubbing.

Almost all the vehicles I have bought new had scratches or marks on the windscreens and bodywork stright out of the box, because there's no attempt to prevent such damage - loose pieces just bang against each other inside the boxes.

Some figures have marks on them from rubbing against other pieces in the bags.

When I buy something new I like to to BE new, not knocked about.

[cachalote]

  using ideas that came up in this thread and some others i remember (and liked) from others, i decided to create a list that we could all "offer" to geobra, if you all agree with them.
  i was hoping that you could all also correct my phrasing so that the english would be perfect.
  if someone could also translate it into german, we could send this list (with additions and revisions) to geobra as the "playmofriend's contribution to an even better playmobil world"...

. better internal packaging, with supports preventing scratches on pieces.
. sets with several (more than 10) single figures from the same family-theme.
. buckets with several figures, that could be re-used to store them all the time.

. a number system depicting all individual parts of every set, included in an instructions booklet on every set.

. larger "collector-special-edition" sets, filled with components and details.
. re-released sets on all families, again, maybe, "colector-special-editions".

. rotating torsos in figures.
. more figures with varied skin colors and face structure, without "caricatural" designs.
. extra-designs for hair-pieces, beards and moustaches (larger, curlier, pointier, etc.)

. sets with construction-oriented design, allowing several ways to assemble the same building.
. sets that are construction-compatible with one-another, permitting justapositions.

. a new "feudal" japanese/chinese theme.
. a playmobil chess set.
. a new scotish "kilted" special.

. an european (or worlwide) site with on-line shopping, including direct service sets.
. new theme-parks all over the world, with educational centers attached.
. playmobil-exclusive blue shops scattered all over the world, also with educational centers attached.
. decisions on new factories or suppliers determined by countries behaviour towards human-rights and child-labour.

[Indianna]

   This is an excellent idea, cachalote!

Now that you have gathered all these ideas into a list, I am sure that people will think of even more things to add.  I thought of these suggestions:

- Make the boxes and other packaging as small as possible to save on resources and to keep parts from shifting around inside
- Automated online direct service ordering for individual parts, not just the "add-ons" (worldwide)
- Ability to order individual arms, legs, torsos, heads, hair, etc.
- Adaptor pieces to connect all the various building systems with each other, such as Steck to System X
- "Wish lists" for hard to find individual pieces such as the water girl's yoke or the castle balcony

We could even "sign" the letter to Geobra with our PF names as well as our real names and contact info.

- Anne

(Thanks to Collectobil and Playmodb for the photo links!)

[playmofire]

cachalote has done a great job here, so a big "Thank you!" to him.

If it helps, I can provide better pictures of the klickies with the rotating torsos if that would help.

I'm not sure about Indianna's suggestion about the size of boxes.  Playmobil, like many other companies, will have designed its boxes with a view to minimising costs by bulk production of a small number of different standard sizes and also geared those sizes to standard palette sizes and outer sizes.  Her others, however, sound good. 

All these suggestions have costs though, and this will obviously influence Geobra in its decisions as incurring extra costs without bringing in extra revenue at least equal to the costs is a non-starter.  We must remember, too, that some of these changes will mean extra costs to Geobra's suppliers and customers in the trade.

I'd be happy to sign any letter appropriately worded.

[Indianna]

. . .  Playmobil, like many other companies, will have designed its boxes with a view to minimising costs by bulk production of a small number of different standard sizes and also geared those sizes to standard palette sizes and outer sizes. . .

Gordon, I agree 100% with this comment.  After opening many Playmobil boxes over the years, we all get a feel for the standard sizes that they use and, truly, some of the larger sets are so efficiently packed that it is almost impossible to put everything back into the box and have it all fit!  Companies certainly want to be as efficient as possible and I imagine Geobra is as good as or better than most companies in this regard.  However, "Marketing" is also a factor and I think that in the US, at least, they use packaging that is often quite a bit larger than necessary, perhaps to appear comparable in value to competing products. Many of the Target and TRU "exclusives" (which have boxes different from the norm) would be examples of this - also the new fairy tale sets such as Hansel and Gretel which, though not "exclusives," have so few pieces relative to box size as to be almost laughable. 

[Martin Milner]

... the new fairy tale sets such as Hansel and Gretel which, though not "exclusives," have so few pieces relative to box size as to be almost laughable. 

I haven't had one of these yet, but aren't the boxes sized to hold the cardboard backgrounds?

[Timotheos]

. a new "feudal" japanese/chinese theme.

Hi Cachalote,
I presume "feudal" applies only to the Japanese medieval society (Chinese would fall under category of imperial).

. decisions on new factories or suppliers determined by countries behaviour towards human-rights and child-labour.

Oh, bosh, but doesn't PM already fret about this?

I'll back you on this, OK.  But don't throw "Green" into the picture!

-Tim